


Endure and Survive

by lipsstainedbloodred



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Eventual kandreil, M/M, The Last of Us AU, Violence, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 09:44:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lipsstainedbloodred/pseuds/lipsstainedbloodred
Summary: (The Last of Us AU) Andrew and Kevin deal in the transport of illicit cargo, but rarely ever human escort missions. Of course it's their rotten luck that brings Neil Josten to their doorstep, a young man with an attitude and a secret. If being hunted by zombies isn't enough, there's also the awful Ravens on their tail, trying to take Neil back. With the hope of humanity, and a cure for immunity, on the line will the three of them reach the Foxes in time to save everyone?





	Endure and Survive

Andrew Minyard had dealt with innumerable types of illicit cargo. Weapons, rations, medical supplies; anything that he could get his hands on and sneak by the half-blind and stupid government personnel roaming the streets of Columbia, South Carolina. He did not, however, deal in human trafficking. People are messy in the way crates of illegal product is not, completely unpredictable and prone to fucking things up. It had nothing to do with Andrew’s moral compass - anything resembling morality had packed it’s shit up and left when the hordes of zombie infected had started showing up, and more to do with the fact that Andrew was not a stupid man. If he were he wouldn’t have lived this long. So when David Wymack, old friend and coach, came knocking on his door with some wiry framed red head that looked half starved and wild, Andrew slammed the door in his face.

Kevin Day, Andrew’s partner and roommate and long-term pain in the ass, had a softer spot for the old man. Or maybe Kevin just liked the thought of money that always showed up when Wymack came knocking. Either way, Kevin opened the door to let Wymack and the kid in, despite Andrew’s scowl.

“No.” Andrew said immediately.

“You don’t even know what I want.” Wymack said gruffly. His face was pale and he moved slow, sinking down onto their one couch with a heavy sigh. The kid stood by the door, all tense muscles like a rabbit ready to run.

“So what do you want?” Kevin asked, “I can’t imagine you’d come all this way just for a chat.” 

Wymack grimaced. There was bad blood between him and Kevin, kind of, or at least history that was both good and bad. Bad enough blood that Wymack didn’t come around unless he has a job for them. Good enough that he was allowed to come around at all. 

“We don’t have all day,” Andrew said, “make it worth my while or get out of my house.”

“This is my house you ungrateful little shit,” Wymack said with no heat, mostly he sounded exhausted, “I just let you live here, but you’re right we don’t have all day. I have a simple job for you, if you want it.”

“Go on,” Kevin said.

Wymack gestured vaguely, “I just need you to get the kid from here to the Palmetto Building by tomorrow. There’s a group of Foxes there that will take him off your hands.”

“What do they want him for?” Kevin asked, “They’re a terrorist group.”

“Not your business,” The kid said, “or anyone’s for that matter. Can you do it or not?”

“For someone that looks about five seconds from fleeing you’ve sure got an attitude,” Andrew said.

“I didn’t live this long by being stupid,” The kid said.

“I feel like maybe you’ve just been lucky,” Andrew said.

“You said they need him by tomorrow,” Kevin said irritably, “it’s already almost time for curfew. We’ll be killed if we get caught outside the gates after hours.”

“You’re smugglers,” Wymack said, “don’t get caught.”

“It’s dangerous,” Kevin said.

“So’s life,” The kid said.

“What the kid said,” Wymack said.

“I have a name,” The kid said irritably, “And I’m 23.”

“Don’t care,” Wymack directed at him before swinging his attention to Andrew, “Interested?”

“Vaguely,” Andrew replied.

“500 ration cards,” Wymack said, “And I’ll throw in as much alcohol as I can get past Abby.”

“500 ration cards,” Kevin whispered, looking dazed.

“If you throw in that bottle of Johnny Walker you’ve been hiding from me then we’re in,” Andrew said.

Wymack rolled his eyes but nodded and then stood, his knees popping. Wymack grimaced and made his way to the door, hesitating by the door on his way out. He reached out and clamped his hand on the kid’s shoulder before he left. “Don’t get yourself killed out there. We’re counting on you.”

The kid shrugged his hand off, “It’ll be fine.”

Wymack held his eyes for a breath longer and leaves, letting the door shut softly behind him on the way out.

“Great,” Kevin said, “How are we going to get past all the night guards with this kid.”

“My name is Neil,” The kid said crossly, “Stop talking about me like I’m not here.”

“Shh,” Andrew said, “Grown ups are talking.” He gestured at Kevin to the back door of the apartment, “We can take the Escape down to the subway tunnels. We’ll pop right up two miles from the Palmetto Building and be back before dawn.”

Kevin shook his head, “I’m not going through the tunnels. It’s crawling with infected and Clickers. If it was just the two of us, maybe, but with a third?”

“Take Arcadia,” Neil said, “The guard on Night Watch there never shows up until 11:30. We can just slip past the guard booth and take the side road out past the Walls.”

Andrew tilted his head, considering. The path worked out, most of that part of town had fallen into disrepair and the guards who patrolled it had gotten slow and lazy in the past year. Furthermore, it’s one of the few parts of the city with no electricity, guards relying on easy to avoid flashlights in the comfort of shadows. But the way Neil said it, so easy, set Andrew on edge.  _Unpredictable_ , Andrew thought. The reason he hates human cargo.

“What?” Neil snapped.

Andrew shrugged, “Fine. If Kevin’s uncomfortable taking the underground, we’ll use the side door.”

“And if the guards see us?” Kevin asked.

“They won’t,” Neil said, “I’ve made it at least that far before.”

“Running from something?” Andrew asked but it sounded like a statement, more like a threat.

Neil just shrugged.

They left the apartment a quarter to 11, making their way past harried store keepers and guards during a shift change. Neil tugged a hat down lower over his face, one of Kevin’s old ones they’d found lying around the bedroom. Neil had been insistent on keeping his hair and his arms covered, though he wouldn’t say why. The more he said the more Andrew wanted to solve the mystery of who this kid was. 

They looped away from the closing stalls of the market place and down Arcadia, ducking through alley ways and passing crumbling apartment buildings. The made it to the guard station at 20 after 11. As Neil said there was no guard in the booth, nor was there one lounging anyway near the gate that blocks entry into the shut down part of the compound. 

Kevin boosted Neil over the fence and then climbs it himself, the offering hand he gives Andrew is pushed testily away by the shorter man. They dropped onto the other side of their gate and head west for the Wall. Here the streets have fallen into ruin, chunks sunk into the earth and grass and weeds battling for their rightful place again. They navigated silently over the crumbling asphalt and around chunks of building that have been blasted into the street. 

Neil hopped over a chunk of rock and misjudges the height, his foot catching the top of the rock and sending him to the ground. The thud of his knees crashing into the pavement is loud in the silence of the night and Andrew’s breath catches for just a second before he wills it into submission.

“Hey!” A voice called from somewhere to the right, “I think I heard something!”

“Well go check it out,” Another voice said, “It’s probably just a fox.”

“Like, a Fox- like a terrorist Fox?” The first asked..

The second voice cursed, “No like an animal you fucking- never mind, I’ll go.”

Neil’s eyes caught Andrew’s brief enough for Andrew to read the fear in them before Kevin was tugging Andrew’s sleeve in an effort to say  _follow me_  before he dashes to the left, down an alley. Andrew and Neil were right on his heels, their feet pounding the pavement. A light flashed behind them, a guard in pursuit.

“Hey! Stop right there!”

Kevin made an abrupt turn, trying to ditch the guard but lights spring on in front of them, two more guards. “This is fucked,” Kevin snarled, trying to find them another out.

“Someone set us up,” Andrew said and lashes out, taking Neil by the throat, “Didn’t they?”

Neil clamped his hands down on Andrew’s wrist, trying to pry him off and failing. 

“On your knees,” One of the guards said. All three of the guards had circled them now, guns pointing at their heads.

“Andrew,” Kevin hissed, lowering himself to his knees.

Andrew gathered all of his strength and let go of Neil, sinking to his knees.

Neil gasped for air as he does the same, his hands shaking as he kneels. 

One of the guards pressed a device like a handheld taser to the back of Kevin’s neck. It’s a device used to read for infection of the virus that has caused the destruction of their world. Andrew is very familiar with the device, after all, his twin brother Aaron was the doctor who’d helped make it. “Clear,” the guard said. He pressed it to Andrew’s neck and Andrew felt the prick of a needle. A second later the guard said, “Clear.” 

The guard reached Neil and Neil moved, elbowing backward into the guard’s crotch and bolting upward like he means to escape. The two other guards grabbed for him and Neil punched one in the face, causing the guard to stumble backward, clutching his bleeding nose. The third guard kicked Neil in the knee before he could turn around and caught his hands, the sleeves of his shirt sliding down.

Andrew darted to the side, unsheathing a knife from his the hidden sheaths he’d sewn into his arm bands, stabbing it under the first guard’s chest armor. He picked up the guard’s gun and aimed it at the second guard. 

“Infected!” He heard the third guard yell and turned his head. Neil’s arms were covered in bite marks, at least a dozen or more on each arm. Kevin rushed forward and tackled the guard, throwing him off his feet. Andrew turned his attention back to the bleeding second guard who’d lowered his gun in favor of his walkie-talkie.

“Infected breach by the West Wall!” The guard called, “I repeat we have-”

Andrew shot the guard once in the head, sending him slumping to the ground. Andrew grunted at the kick from the gun, more used to his knives than a pistol. He turned the gun toward the third guard but lowered it. Kevin and the guard were trading punches and Andrew had no clear shot, but apparently Neil did.

Neil knocked Kevin to the side and straddled the guard, the gun the guard had dropped in the fight now in his hands. Neil pointed the muzzle between the man’s eyes and pulled the trigger, sending blood everywhere. Neil gagged and stumbled upward into Kevin. Kevin took the gun from him and shoved Neil to the ground, pointing the gun at his head. Andrew aimed his gun for Neil as well. 

“I’m not infected,” Neil said, arms out and exposed. They look fresh, like he’d just been bitten an hour ago. 

“Christ you look like they tried to eat you alive,” Kevin said, face pale.

“Three months,” Neil said, “I swear. These are three months old.”

“Don’t lie,” Andrew said coldly.

“I’m not!” Neil said, “Do you think Wymack would have brought me to you if he didn’t know for sure? They say it takes two days for the bite to turn you, but I stayed with Wymack for two months before he sent word to the Foxes. They think I’m immune.”

“Immune,” Kevin said softly.

“Pipe dream,” Andrew corrected.

“Call it whatever you want, I’m not lying,” Neil said, “The Foxes have a lab somewhere that they’ve been working on a cure. Headed by some doctor named Minyard. The Foxes that you’re bringing me to are taking me to him.”

Kevin looked at Andrew. Andrew lowered his gun and followed suit. “What do you want to do?” Kevin asked.

“We’ll take him to Palmetto,” Andrew said, “and then we’ll come back and get paid. The Foxes can take it from there.”

“The guards have all been alerted,” Kevin said, “Half the city is going to be looking for us.” 

“All the more reason to keep moving,” Andrew said.

“So you believe me,” Neil said.

“No,” Andrew said, “But we have a half day’s walk to the Palmetto Building. If any of those bites start to look any worse by the time we get there, I’ll just shoot you there and be done with it.”

“Why not shoot me now? Save yourself the walk?” Neil asked, but the corner of his mouth tilted up into something like a smile.

 _Pest_ , Andrew thought. “Maybe I’d like the exercise,” Andrew said.

Kevin snorted and Andrew shot him a dirty look. 

“The Western Wall is compromised,” Neil said, “What else have you got?”

“Plan A,” Andrew said, shrugging a shoulder. “We go down.”

Kevin groaned, “I hate the subways.”

“And I hate being shot,” Andrew said, “We’re going down. We’ll avoid as many of the spore areas as we can.”

“You have the worst ideas,” Kevin grumbled.

Andrew turned and started heading for a dilapidated apartment building. “I told Wymack no,” Andrew said, “You’re the one who let him inside.”

Kevin rolled his eyes and motioned for Neil to follow Andrew. 

“So,” Neil said, following Andrew into the building, “It’s a truce for now.”

Andrew opened a door that lead to a set of steps that went down into the basement. “It’s a truce for now,” Andrew agreed, “At least until you do something stupid.”

Neil grinned, it looked sharp like the cut of a knife. Andrew turned away from him and the three of them descended into the darkness below.


End file.
